Certain types of television content occasionally needs to be “blacked out” in locales for which rights to that content are withheld. For example, certain sporting events are “blacked out” in the geographic region of the event if the sports team doesn't sell all the tickets for the event. In this situation, content providers must not show the local game in the local geographic region. Instead, content providers may show nothing (e.g., a blank screen), a message indicating the program is “blacked out”, an advertisement, or substitute video content.
Program substitution occurs when content that is supplied in a particular region must be either removed and replaced by a static message or substitute video content for a limited period of time (e.g., for the duration of a particular sporting event). Existing systems in the cable television industry perform program substitution by switching the physical encoders that provide the content. Since there are hundreds of different locales that might be subject to program “black out” restrictions, cable companies need to dedicate hundreds of special-purpose receiver-decoders to support this functionality. This use of many special-purpose receiver-decoders is expensive and adds to the complexity of the system.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a system that is capable of substituting content without requiring the use of many expensive, special-purpose receiver-decoders.